Monday, March 28, 2011

PA school has been very trying lately. I'm constantly irritable. Exhausted, both mentally and physically. Discouraged. Unmotivated.

I could go on. But then we have fun days like this.

Don't worry! I didn't break both my legs. We had our cast/splint lab today! SOOO much fun! No thinking, no stressing. Just straight up having fun!

Someone suggested sending this in to Netter for his next anatomy book. I think it looks pretty legit! =)

I personally went for the skull and crossbones look! Not so much hard as it is cutesy. Oh well, I never claimed to be an artist!

Seeing as I volunteered to get a double cast today, I had to walk around like this for almost two hours. Awkward, but not as hard as it looks.

I'm FREE!! This tickled sooo much! I was trying so hard not to bust out laughing while I was getting my cast cut off!

We learned how to do our first suture last week. The simple interrupted stitch. I LOVE IT! It's like sewing fabric but easier (don't judge me). This is my first ever effort having to stitch anything. In reality this poor person would have had all their stitches ripped out and started over. But I whipped out a whopping SEVEN stitches! Haha.. I've never been so proud!

We dont' get days like this too often, but boy they are much needed and appreciated when we do get them!

I know you never thought you'd see dead pig feet on my blog! Not crafty, but still pretty entertaining to me!

It all happened on Christmas Eve 2006. Hubby had been at Fort Drum for months and I had just graduated from college. After break I would be making the move to Upstate with him. We went to lunch that afternoon and he was acting weird all day. He barely ate anything... said his stomach was a little upset. Not to mention he made about a thousand phone calls during lunch.

He said we needed to stop by his sister's house to "get something." What?! I need to go home and get ready NOW! We have Christmas Eve celebrations to go to! He assured me it wouldn't take long.

As we were driving through his sister's neighborhood I approached a stop sign. I noticed a cop car sitting at the dead end and thought it was strange. Of course I stopped for like 20 seconds before I continued on. You can imagine my horror when the cop car pulled out behind me and trailed me as far as two houses before his sister's house. On came the police lights!

WHAT! I was going like FOUR miles an hour. I stopped at the stop sign. WHAT IS THE DEAL!

Two cops got out. One came to my side and one went to hubby's side. I thought the cop on hubby's side looked like Mr. SPD but he kept his sunglasses on hid behind the door frame.

"Good afternoon. Do you know why we pulled you over?"

"No!"

"Well, we've been having some drug trafficking in the area and your car matches the description."

At this point I threw up in my mouth a little. What? Me? Drugs? Are you kidding me? Go figure I had TWO cases of beer (for Christmas presents) and I had just picked up the new plates for my Dad's car. Hmmm.. two cases of beer and license plates that weren't my own. This looks suspicious.

As we are walking to the back of the car the hubby comes over to me and whispers "I'm holding something for a friend."

My heart sank. WHAT?! My life is over. You're an idiot. I hate you and your friend. What the heck were you thinking?!

The cop by now was searching the vehicle and had already questioned me about the cases of beer and the license plate. Ok. Off the hook for those. Time to do the body search.

Hubby was placed up against the back of the car with his legs spread as the search began. My heart was pounding faster and faster and I just knew my life was over. Keep in mind one of his sister's neighbors had walked down to the end of the driveway and was watching the whole thing.

As the cop patted down hubby's cargo khakis he kept asking "Is there anything I need to be aware of? Is there anything that is going to stab me?" To which the hubby replied "No."

Then he got to the cargo pocket on the side of hubby's leg.

GULP

"Sir, what is this?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" So the cop pulled out a crinkled, very suspicious looking brown paper sack.

I don't know how I didn't pass out.

"I'll ask you again. Sir, what is in the bag?"

Hubby kept saying I don't know.

So the cop asked "Sir, who does this belong to?"

Hubby's response? He pointed to me!!

Inside I'm thinking "You're dead. I will kill you. How dare you!"

I insistently replied that it was not my bag. I had never seen it before in my life. (I really hadn't)

By now the cop is getting annoyed. Neither of us are claiming the bag. So he opens it, looks at me and says "Mam, I think this is yours."

Total confusion. What on earth would be in that bag to make him think it is mine? Tampons? Pads? I don't understand.

So he hands the bag to me and I peek inside, very close to passing out. And I see a ring box. It all clicks. You sneaky SOB!

I pull the ring box out, hubby gets down on his knee and proposes. EPIC proposal!!

He knows I'm not a very romantic/mushy kinda gal, so this was great! And cop number 2 was Mr. SPD. They had been co-conspiring for weeks!

Obviously I said yes, and years later we have a pretty cool proposal story!

Friday, March 25, 2011

Hooray for Spring! Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons... you get to see all of the changing scenery and the weather is just perfect (usually)!

I've been making some bright changes to get ready for Spring and warm afternoons on the porch! After I transformed the blue chair for my front porch I decided to do the Adirondack chairs on the back porch. I went to Lowes to get the same blue spray paint... AND THEY WERE OUT!! *Small tear*

There was a shade of blue next to it that was not quite as brilliant, but the hubby liked it better so I went with it. True to Spring, it was crazy windy outside and I was in a race against impending rain.

I worked on this project over Spring Break and had to get it done, so I couldn't just wait for a later time. So I did what any respectable person would do. I spray painted under my back porch.

I will NEVER do this again! LOL! My poor little back hurt so bad from bending over for almost an hour, and I whacked my head on the wood beam real good at least once.

But it worked.. for the most part being under the porch blocked a lot of the wind and I was able to finish my chairs. I was working on some iron chairs as well, so I had two separate projects going on. Here they all are before:

The solid white iron chair was given to me by my Father-In-Law, and the white and green iron chair was saved from the dump by my Sister-In-Law!

It did nothing but RAIN for at least three days after I finished them, but they have held up just fine!

I was in a HUGE rush to finish my iron chairs, so I was bad and didn't take many in between shots. You can see one of them in the back of this picture with the wood seat cut out.

After they were spray painted I had to trace out the pattern for the seat. I used wood I had left over from my bookcase project. It is similar to the wood I used on my $5 wall art.

Because it is so thin I cut out two circles using my jigsaw so they would be thick enough. After the circles were cut out I glued them together with my gorilla glue and used a hand-held staple gun to staple on the batting and fabric.

They now sit on opposite corners of the back porch:

I'm loving my back porch and the weather!! Now I just need some beautiful flowers (not the brown kind)!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

If you guessed that I was making a chalkboard out of my epic Craigslist find you were right! But there's a twist to this one! It's magnetic too!!

I started by priming the frame with two bottles of Krylon white primer.

I then used two bottles of Krylon white semi-gloss for the color.

I did all of this in my garage - I needed to lift it up off the ground, so I propped it up on two paint buckets.

While I was painting the frame began to grow fur.

I thought the frame was completely clean when I started spray painting, but obviously not. I grabbed my Purdy brush (which was the closest thing to me) and brushed vigorously over the whole frame after it was dry. This got the majority of the fuzz off. I just kept painting and rubbed the rest off a few days later. It's nice and smooth now!

In order to have chalkboard and magnetic capabilities, I decided to spray paint chalkboard paint onto a sheet of metal. I ran to Lowes and found a 2x3 sheet of metal. I honestly didn't know what size I needed, so I just grabbed the one that looked closest. Much to my satisfaction, it was a perfect fit!

Before I put on the chalkboard paint I sanded the sheet of metal with my dremel sander.

I was in a HUGE rush so I only have one photo of the metal sanded. You can see it on the ground here.

I then used the last of my Krylon primer to prime the metal before putting on the chalkboard spray paint.

I had to hunt all over the universe for chalkboard spray paint. I finally found some Krylon spray paint. I put on two coats.

Here she is with a coat of chalkboard spray paint ready to have the calander drawn on.

I wanted to make sure it looked ok with the chalkboard paint. I loved it! I left it for one week before I began any work on the calender.

In order to do the calender I had to make as precise of a measurement as I could. I wanted the calender template centered, but I didn't want it to take up the entire center of the frame.

So I made a very professional sketch and wrote down my measurements.

After I had marked the edge of the template and made a notch every 2.6" I traced it out in pencil.

I then used an acrylic paint pen (which is awesome) and my ruler to paint on the lines.

I began with the vertical lines.

Then horizontal.

I never read instructions, so fortunately for me I had read on other blogs that you have to rub over the entire chalkboard surface with chalk before you write on it. Otherwise it will permanently imprint whatever you write in it.

I went ahead and drew on my calender info for March and stuck it into the frame to make sure the size would work. Perfect!

I thought about putting a sheet of wood behind the metal to make it more sturdy, but I found that simply placing screws every few inches behind the sheet of metal held it in place fine.

Once I felt like the sheet of metal was secure I got ready to hang it on the wall. I wasn't taking any more chances with pseudo home invaders so I put THREE anchors in the wall! This bad boy isn't budging!

Worked like a charm! This frame is heavy and cumbersome, so I probably should have waited for the hubby to get home and help - but you know how that goes. I wanted it done NOW! It was worth a potential broken bone!

The little silver pieces are magnets. Eventually I'll probably make some cute rosette magnets. But for now it's really not a necessity!

My initial thought was to make magnets numbered 1-31, then make a magnetic header for each month. That way it would be easy to switch the calender around each month. But I knew it probably wouldn't turn out like the vision I had, and it's just as easy (and fun) to re-do the calender with chalk each month.

I love it! Hope you do too! Enjoy all the views!

You can really see the imperfections of the frame in this photo. Unless you're really up close investigating it they're not terribly obvious.

Now I just need to work on my chalk caligraphy skills!

*****EDIT*****

I've been playing with my chalk! Chalk caligraphy is getting a little better! I'm ready for April!